The Donald Jr.

Even Losers On The Apprentice Are Smart Enough And Driven Enough To Make A Mark Somewhere, If Not With Trump.

January 8, 2004|By Tom Jicha TV/Radio Writer

People used to go on game shows to win enough money so they would not have to work. The Apprentice turns this upside down. The grand prize is a job. It is, however, a grand job -- a $250,000 per annum position running one of Donald Trump's business divisions.

Trump should pay 10 times that for the publicity he's getting. The NBC series, produced by Survivor creator Mark Burnett, is an orgy of product placement, with the products being Trump and his empire.

Survival in the game is based on performance in a series of daunting challenges designed to test entrepreneurial skills. As Burnett did with Survivor: Amazon, the starting field of 16 is divided into two groups based on gender. Each episode will see them using their wits to come out best in a one-day competition that, in the real world, would be allotted weeks, if not months.

For some of the 16, a quarter-million a year probably amounts to a steep cut in income. At 24, Katrina Campins of Coral Gables is already in the top 3 percent of real-estate agents nationwide. Jason Curtis of Detroit, also 24, owns 39 rental units and 11 other properties. Kristi Frank, 30, of Bel Air, Calif. -- her address says it all -- owns two residential properties on the beach in Santa Monica as well a trendy restaurant. Bill Rancic, 32, of Chicago, founded the Web site Cigars Around the World and built it into a multimillion-dollar business. David Gould, 31, has a medical degree but decided he would rather be a venture capitalist, so he went back to school and earned an MBA.

"I've been reading that people aren't so smart," Trump said. "The level of talent and brain power we have is extraordinary." The final 16 were chosen from more than 200,000 applicants. "We had people who were at the top of their class at great colleges, who couldn't qualify because they weren't smart enough."

Obviously even smart, prosperous people will do almost anything to get on TV.

Suiting their stations in life, these reality contestants are not being asked to live in wretched squalor or eat squishy creatures. Their base is a suite of rooms in Trump Towers, with all the amenities.

This doesn't mean there weren't deprivations. On Survivor, the contestants get to sleep a lot or just lollygag around much of the day, Burnett said. "In The Apprentice, they were getting an hour and a half of sleep. They were asleep on their feet a lot of the time."

Following the lead of other programs in the genre, one Trump sycophant-wannabe will be banished each week. "It's the suite or the street," Trump said.

In tonight's 90-minute premiere (subsequent episodes will air for an hour on Wednesdays), they are given $250 to create a sidewalk lemonade business. The team that produces the most profit avoids having to go to "the boardroom," where all are grilled on their underperformance and one of them is "fired."

Taking a shot at another New York tycoon, Trump quipped, "Unlike Leona [Helmsley], I don't like firing people. But it's a fact of life."

The winners get a "reward," such as a tour of Trump's private quarters and an introduction to the girlfriend du jour. Trump's vanity and ego are boundless.

Tasks in upcoming shows will include renovating, then renting an apartment in a downscale neighborhood; organizing and promoting a rock concert; setting up an art gallery, and operating a swap meet. "These people did some things we thought were impossible," Burnett said. "They have made me less patient with people in my organization who tell me they can't get something done in 24 hours."

Even those who don't come out on top are likely to be offered "unbelievable jobs," according to Trump. The Donald has no qualms about hiring any of them. "The more interesting question is, will they be willing to stay beyond a year? These people all want to be billionaires and usually you get very rich working for yourself."

This gives The Apprentice, one of the classier reality shows to feed the fad, something in common with its lower-brow brethren. Relationships rarely last very long on those shows, either.